Skyesports Masters cancels LAN event and moves online

South East Asian tournament organiser Skyesports has cancelled the LAN component of its 2024 Counter-Strike 2 Skyesports Masters event set to start next month.

According to the company, the Indian general elections, which also take place in April, made it difficult for Skyesports to get approval for hosting a large-scale in-person event in Mumbai.

As a result, the Main Event of the Skyesports Masters will now be held online on the same dates (April 8th – 14th). The prize pool of $350,000 (~£276,000), which was increased from $245,000 (~£193,000), will also remain unchanged for the event.

Skyesports only recently announced a big change to the tournament format for 2024, taking it from an Indian-based franchised league to a seven-day LAN event featuring seven invited teams and one Indian team. This is likely in line with Valve’s announced rule changes last year that will effectively ban franchised leagues in the esport title. This ruling is set to come into action sometime in 2025, although a date has yet to be announced.

One of the invited teams, Team Liquid, has withdrawn from the competition after being invited to IEM Chengdu to replace Complexity. Replacing the multi-regional organisation is BetBoom, a Russian-based organisation that finished second in the Skyesports Masters European Closed Qualifier.

The event organisers have also announced that it will provide the Indian team with travel and boot camp opportunities in Serbia.

This is not the first time that Skyesports has had a Counter-Strike event plans change, as the Skyesports Championship 5.0 was indefinitely postponed last year.

Skyesports has been heavily involved in South Asian esports since 2018 and has established a name for itself across a variety of esports titles. Its most known tournaments are the Skyesports League, the Skyesports Grand Slam, and the Skyesports championship in Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI).